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I am relatively new to Ruby, having worked with Rails for about 8 months.

For fun and my own education, I have written a Ruby gem (no Rails) that models dates with a precision (second, minute, hour, day ... billion years). A big part of my goal was create dates from the date format on Wikidata, and format them as human-readable strings.

For example:

CarbonDate::Date.new(1914, 07, 28, precision: :decade).to_s
=> "1910s"

CarbonDate::Date.iso8601('+0632-06-08T00:00:00Z', 11).to_s
=> "8th June, 632"

The Date class:

module CarbonDate

  class Date

    @formatter = CarbonDate::StandardFormatter.new

    class << self
      attr_accessor :formatter
    end

    PRECISION = [
      {symbol: :second, level: 14},
      {symbol: :minute, level: 13},
      {symbol: :hour, level: 12},
      {symbol: :day, level: 11},
      {symbol: :month, level: 10},
      {symbol: :year, level: 9,},
      {symbol: :decade, level: 8,},
      {symbol: :century, level: 7,},
      {symbol: :millennium, level: 6,},
      {symbol: :ten_thousand_years, level: 5,},
      {symbol: :hundred_thousand_years, level: 4},
      {symbol: :million_years, level: 3},
      {symbol: :ten_million_years, level: 2},
      {symbol: :hundred_million_years, level: 1},
      {symbol: :billion_years, level: 0}
    ]

    attr_reader :precision, :year, :month, :day, :hour, :minute, :second

    def initialize(year = 1970, month = 1, day = 1, hour = 0, minute = 0, second = 0, precision: :second)
      month = 1 if month == 0
      day = 1 if day == 0
      self.precision = precision
      self.set_date(year, month, day)
      self.hour = hour
      self.minute = minute
      self.second = second
    end

    def precision=(value)
      p = PRECISION.find { |x| x[:symbol] == value }
      raise ArgumentError.new "Invalid precision #{value}" unless p
      @precision = p
    end

    def set_date(year, month, day)

      raise ArgumentError.new("Invalid date #{year}-#{month}-#{day}") unless (1..12).include? month
      raise ArgumentError.new("Invalid date #{year}-#{month}-#{day}") if (year.nil? || year == 0)

      begin
        ::Date.new(year, month, day)
      rescue ArgumentError
        raise ArgumentError.new("Invalid date #{year}-#{month}-#{day}")
      end

      @year = year.to_i
      @month = month
      @day = day

    end

    def year=(value)
      set_date(value, @month, @day)
    end

    def month=(value)
      set_date(@year, value, @day)
    end

    def day=(value)
      set_date(@year, @month, value)
    end

    def hour=(value)
      raise ArgumentError.new "Invalid hour #{value}" unless (0..23).include? value
      @hour = value
    end

    def minute=(value)
      raise ArgumentError.new "Invalid minute #{value}" unless (0..59).include? value
      @minute = value
    end

    def second=(value)
      raise ArgumentError.new "Invalid second #{value}" unless (0..59).include? value
      @second = value
    end

    def self.iso8601(string, precision_level)
      p = PRECISION.find { |p| p[:level] == precision_level}
      raise ArgumentError.new("Invalid precision level #{precision_level}") unless p
      if string[0] == '-'
        string = string[1..(string.length - 1)]
        bce = true
      else
        bce = false
      end
      d = string.split('T').map { |x| x.split /[-:]/ }.flatten.map(&:to_i)
      year = bce ? -d[0] : d[0]
      CarbonDate::Date.new(year, d[1], d[2], d[3], d[4], d[5], precision: p[:symbol])
    end

    def to_s
      CarbonDate::Date.formatter.date_to_string(self)
    end

    def to_date
      ::Date.new(@year, @month, @day)
    end

    def to_datetime
      ::DateTime.new(@year, @month, @day, @hour, @minute, @second)
    end

    def ==(another_date)
      return false if self.precision != another_date.precision
      self.to_datetime == another_date.to_datetime
    end

    def <=(another_date)
      self.to_datetime <= another_date.to_datetime
    end

    def >=(another_date)
      self.to_datetime >= another_date.to_datetime
    end

  end
end

The Formatter class:

module CarbonDate
  class Formatter
    def date_to_string(date)
      precision = date.precision.fetch(:symbol, nil)
      case precision
      when :billion_years then billion_years(date)
      when :hundred_million_years then hundred_million_years(date)
      when :ten_million_years then ten_million_years(date)
      when :million_years then million_years(date)
      when :hundred_thousand_years then hundred_thousand_years(date)
      when :ten_thousand_years then ten_thousand_years(date)
      when :millennium then millennium(date)
      when :century then century(date)
      when :decade then decade(date)
      when :year then year(date)
      when :month then month(date)
      when :day then day(date)
      when :hour then hour(date)
      when :minute then minute(date)
      when :second then second(date)
      else raise StandardError.new("Unrecognized precision: #{precision}")
      end
    end
  end
end

The StandardFormatter class:

module CarbonDate
  class StandardFormatter < Formatter

    BCE_SUFFIX = 'BCE'

    MONTHS = ['January', 'February', 'March', 'April', 'May', 'June', 'July', 'August', 'September', 'October', 'November', 'December']

    private

    def year(date)
      y = date.year.abs.to_s
      return [y, BCE_SUFFIX].join(' ') if (date.year <= -1)
      y
    end

    def month(date)
      [MONTHS[date.month - 1], year(date)].join(', ')
    end

    def day(date)
      [date.day.ordinalize.to_s, month(date)].join(' ')
    end

    def hour(date)
      h = date.minute >= 30 ? date.hour + 1 : date.hour
      time = [pad(h.to_s), '00'].join(':')
      [time, day(date)].join(' ')
    end

    def minute(date)
      time = [pad(date.hour.to_s), pad(date.minute.to_s)].join(':')
      [time, day(date)].join(' ')
    end

    def second(date)
      time = [pad(date.hour.to_s), pad(date.minute.to_s), pad(date.second.to_s)].join(':')
      [time, day(date)].join(' ')
    end

    def decade(date)
      d = ((date.year.abs.to_i / 10) * 10).to_s + 's'
      return [d, BCE_SUFFIX].join(' ') if (date.year <= -1)
      d
    end

    def century(date)
      c = ((date.year.abs.to_i / 100) + 1).ordinalize + ' century'
      return [c, BCE_SUFFIX].join(' ') if (date.year <= -1)
      c
    end

    def millennium(date)
      m = ((date.year.abs.to_i / 1000) + 1).ordinalize + ' millennium'
      return [m, BCE_SUFFIX].join(' ') if (date.year <= -1)
      m
    end

    def ten_thousand_years(date)
      coarse_precision(date.year, 10e3.to_i)
    end

    def hundred_thousand_years(date)
      coarse_precision(date.year, 100e3.to_i)
    end

    def million_years(date)
      coarse_precision(date.year, 1e6.to_i)
    end

    def ten_million_years(date)
      coarse_precision(date.year, 10e6.to_i)
    end

    def hundred_million_years(date)
      coarse_precision(date.year, 100e6.to_i)
    end

    def billion_years(date)
      coarse_precision(date.year, 1e9.to_i)
    end

    def coarse_precision(date_year, interval)

      date_year = date_year.to_i
      interval = interval.to_i

      year_diff = date_year - ::Date.today.year
      return "Within the last #{number_with_delimiter(interval)} years" if (-(interval - 1)..0).include? year_diff
      return "Within the next #{number_with_delimiter(interval)} years" if (1..(interval - 1)).include? year_diff

      rounded = (year_diff.to_f / interval.to_f).round * interval
      return "in #{number_with_delimiter(rounded.abs)} years" if rounded > 0
      return "#{number_with_delimiter(rounded.abs)} years ago" if rounded < 0

      nil
    end

    def number_with_delimiter(n, delim = ',')
      n.to_i.to_s.reverse.chars.each_slice(3).map(&:join).join(delim).reverse
    end

    def pad(s)
      s.rjust(2, '0')
    end

  end
end

I have removed comments from the code here, for the sake of brevity. The full code base can be found here.

I would really appreciate feedback, as I am striving to be a better programmer.

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1 Answer 1

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First thing - Date::PRECISION. Can't find purpose of level key.

I've noticed that is possibility of DRY-ing Formatter class:

class Formatter
  def date_to_string(date)
    precision = date.precision.fetch(:symbol, :nil)
    public_send(precision, date)
  rescue NoMethodError
    raise StandardError.new("Unrecognized precision: #{precision}")
  end
end

Similar refactoring can be done for StandardFormatter class.

And for Date#set_date: raise ArgumentError.new("Invalid date #{year}-#{month}-#{day}") can be easily DRY-ed up.

That's it for now.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks so much. You are quite correct about the :level key being unused, and with the repeated ArgumentError for invalid dates. I have 2 questions about your proposal for Formatter. First, did you purposefully symbolize :nil? Secondly, is it not a bit 'dirty' to call functions by a name, with public_send? It seems like it could backfire somehow by allowing client code to call an unwanted function. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 13, 2016 at 10:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ 1. nil => :nil. public_send accepts symbol. Passing nil will break the function. 2. public_send. This method is widely used for meta-programming. If we call protected or private method (aka "unwanted") ruby will raise NoMethodError. \$\endgroup\$
    – Sergii K
    Jun 13, 2016 at 11:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for the additional feedback. I also found this StackOverflow question and this book that support the fact that public_send (and send) is acceptable to use. Thanks once again. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 13, 2016 at 14:32

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